Moderate earthquake in Georgia / South Carolina, USA – some slight damage expected / reported
Last update: February 15, 2014 at 6:00 am by By Armand Vervaeck
Why earthquakes in this area of the United States ? Earthquakes in the Inland Carolinas Region
Since at least 1776, people living inland in North and South Carolina, and in adjacent parts of Georgia and Tennessee, have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from infrequent larger ones. The largest earthquake in the area (magnitude 5.1) occurred in 1916. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike the inland Carolinas every few decades, and smaller earthquakes are felt about once each year or two.
Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).
Faults
Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep. Most bedrock beneath the inland Carolinas was assembled as continents collided to form a supercontinent about 500-300 million years ago, raising the Appalachian Mountains. Most of the rest of the bedrock formed when the supercontinent rifted apart about 200 million years ago to form what are now the northeastern U.S., the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe.
At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case. The inland Carolinas region is far from the nearest plate boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea. The region is laced with known faults but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few, if any, earthquakes in the inland Carolinas can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine if a known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. As in most other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards in the seismic zone is the earthquakes themselves. (Source USGS)
Update : An Edgefield Water Utility representative said the floor of Edgefield County Hospital may be cracked. No evacuation has been made as of yet. An over flow of the Edgefield Co. water towers was scheduled previously. It has nothing to do with the earthquake.
Update : Residents of High Point, more than 150 miles from the epicenter, reported feeling the earthquake. The tremors were also felt in much of northern Georgia and even in southeastern Tennessee.
broken bottles in a supermarket in Augusta – Twitter image courtesy and copyright @cornermanjames
Update : The map below shows how strong people felt it
Update : light damage like the picture below can be expected on many places.
Update : A hospital in Edgefield has a crack in the floor and is preparing to evacuate, according to WSPA. There have not yet been other reports of serious damage.
twitter image courtesy Tyler E Santee
12km (7mi) WNW of Edgefield, South Carolina
31km (19mi) NNE of Evans, Georgia
32km (20mi) N of Martinez, Georgia
35km (22mi) NNW of North Augusta, South Carolina
97km (60mi) WSW of Columbia, South Carolina
Last update: February 12, 2014 at 1:40 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Update 13:24 UTC : Cattle is reportedly killed in the greater epicenter area. Some train connections where temporarily suspended in Xinjiang but where restored after inspection of the rails proved that no damage was inflicted (at a big distance from the epicenter).
the picture below shows the (beautiful) scenery in the valley near the epicenter. The epicenter is located in the (not visible) mountains behind this picture. People in Xinjiang are used to earthquakes, even strong earthquakes but primitive old houses are very vulnerable for damage.
Update 11:59 UTC : The Xinjiang seismological authority reports that several houses collapsed in the greater epicenter area. We expect more news from the rescue teams in 1 to 2 hours. The Chinese Earthquake response is one of the quickest and best organized in the world. China has a history of many cruel earthquakes sometimes with +100000 fatalities.
A new shake-map has been published by USGS. They are now reporting a IX MMI in the unpopulated epicenter area.
Update 11:33 UTC :
Official statement from the Xinjiang Earthquake authority :
Yutian County, 7.3 magnitude earthquake.
The Xinjiang autonomous Seismological Bureau immediately launched an emergency plan. We try to quickly find out what happened in the epicenter area and called Yutian County by telephone. Locations in Yutian county felt the earthquake strongly. Buildings in Yutian are reported with cracks. No word of casualties so far.
Officers have been send to the epicenter area to investigate the disaster. Autonomous Region Seismological Bureau intends to sent a 23 people on-site work team with a flight to conduct field work. Hotan Prefecture Earthquake Seismic Bureau has rushed staff to the quake zone to report on the disaster. China Seismological Bureau will sent 13 people for earthquake fieldwork and to assist the local governments to carry out emergency work days.
Update 10:27 UTC: A rescue team was sent by the Xinjiang government to check the affected area.
Update 09:54 UTC : An aftershock of M5.7 @ 5 km depth is just reported by one of my colleagues. Such an aftershock alone can be damaging in China!
Update 09:53 UTC : Max Wyss reports that he expects 0 to 50 fatalities and 0 to 120 injured but his data is based on the USGS data who report a Magnitude of 6.8 at 2 km. Chinese data are more dangerous at 7.3 at 12 km deep. Max Wyss also reports that only 1 small settlement is located within the 50 km radius around the epicenter.
Update 09:49 UTC : A similar strength earthquake along the same fault killed 100 people in 1924!
Update 09:41 UTC : CEIC, the seismological agency of the Chinese government is reporting a Magnitude of 7.3 at a depth of 12 km !
Update 09:39 UTC : The epicenter is located in a sparsely populated area, but the Magnitude is so strong that we expect serious damage and injured people in a radius of at least 50 km.
This earthquake is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS for all villages in a radius of 50 km around the epicenter. Slight damage can be expected in a radius as far as 150 km from the epicenter.
844 km NE of Ludhiāna, India / pop: 1,545,368 / local time: 14:49:48.0 2014-02-12
739 km NE of Shimla, India / pop: 173,503 / local time: 14:49:48.0 2014-02-12
277 km SE of Hotan, China / pop: 114,000 / local time: 17:19:48.0 2014-02-12
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 6.9
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-02-12 17:19:50
Right Ascension: 04 hrs. 08 Min. 08 Sec.
Declination: 60 degrees 56 arc min. 43 arc sec.
Moving toward earth at 200 Kps
Turner Radio Network states (More At Source):
According to Dr. Kaplan, the planet-sized object will be at Earth by August, 2014. Kaplan says prior to its arrival, Earth will experience more and more adverse effects from the gravity of this planet. TRN inquired of other astronomy and geological experts and they told us that if Kaplan’s scenario is true, the problems Earth will experience would begin with weather anomalies and tidal anomalies, will increase to earthquakes then volcanic eruptions as Earth’s magma is pulled by the gravity of the approaching planet. The experts went on to tell us the troubles would increase further to horrific tsunamis 1000 meters high, moving at 1200 kilometers per hour striking coastal regions around the Earth and, ultimately, when this planet is closest by August 2014, Earth will suffer widespread destruction from shifting tectonic plates on a massive scale. One expert even claimed that depending upon the size and gravity of the planet, and its angle of approach, the gravity of this other planet could actually STOP the Earth from rotating on its axis. He likened it to a vehicle traveling at 1,000 miles per hour, and having the brakes slammed on; the resulting inertia of all objects on earth would cause them to continue moving while the earth was stopping; sort of like what happens in a car wreck when the car suddenly stops, but the passengers fly forward from their own inertia. While Kaplan himself did not make any such claims, he did say the approach and passage of this planet “will reconstruct the surface of the Earth into something we don’t even know.”
California’s first significant snow storm of 2014 hit the Sierras on Wednesday and Thursday, dumping up to 2 feet of snow, with a melted water equivalent of up to two inches. However, this modest snowstorm was not enough to keep the Sierra snowpack from recording its lowest snow amounts in more than 50 years of record keeping during Thursday’s Sierra Snow Survey. The survey found a snow pack that was only 12% of normal for this time of year. Until Thursday, the lowest statewide snowpack measurement at this time of year was 21% of average, in 1991 and 1963, according to the Los Angeles Times. Since snowpack in the Sierras forms a crucial source of water for California, the dismal snow survey results are a huge concern.
Figure 1. Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Survey Program for the Department of Water Resources, walks leaves a snow covered meadow after the second snow survey of the year near Echo Summit, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Despite the overnight snow storm the survey showed the snow depth at 12.4 inches with a water content of only 1.4 inches for this location at this time of the year. Gehrke said that while the recent snow fall will help, it is not enough to impact the water supply.(AP Photo)
The forecast: little drought relief in sight
One of the most persistent and intense ridges of high pressure ever recorded in North America has been anchored over the West Coast since December 2012. While the ridge has occasionally broken down and allowed low pressure systems to leak though, these storms have mostly brought spotty and meager precipitation to California, resulting in California’s driest year on record during 2013. January 2014 could well be its driest January on record. The ridge inevitably builds back after each storm, clamping down on any moisture reaching the state. Since rain-bearing low pressure systems tend to travel along the axis of the jet stream, these storms are being carried along the axis of the ridge, well to the north of California and into Southeast Alaska, leaving California exceptionally dry. The latest runs of the GFS and European models show that the ridge is now building back, and it appears likely that California will see no significant precipitation until at least February 7. A weak upper level low will move along the coast on Sunday and spread some light rain along the immediate coast, but this precipitation will generally be less than 0.25″–too little to have any significant impact on the drought. The ridge will not be as intense when it builds back, though, which gives me some hope that a low pressure system will be able to break the ridge by mid-February and bring the most significant rains of the winter rainy season to California.
Worst California drought in 500 years?
UC Berkeley paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram, author of “The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow”, said in an interview, “this could potentially be the driest water year in 500 years.” Her research on tree rings shows that California has not experienced such an extreme drought since 1580. “If you go back thousands of years, you see that droughts can go on for years if not decades, and there were some dry periods that lasted over a century, like during the Medieval period and the middle Holocene. The 20th century was unusually mild here, in the sense that the droughts weren’t as severe as in the past. It was a wetter century, and a lot of our development has been based on that.” It’s no wonder, then, that the overall agricultural impact of the drought could reach $1 billion this year, according to the Fresno-based Westlands Water District.
California’s drought woes are part of an on-going 14-year Western U.S. drought that began in 2000, and peaked between 2000 – 2004. A 2012 study titled, Reduction in carbon uptake during turn of the century drought in western North America, found that the 2000 – 2004 drought was the most severe Western North America event of its kind since the last mega drought over 800 years ago, during the years 1146 – 1151. The paper analyzed the latest generation of climate models used for the 2013 IPCC report, which project that the weather conditions that spawned the 2000 – 2004 drought will be the new normal in the Western U.S. by 2030, and will be considered extremely wet by the year 2100. If these dire predictions of a coming “megadrought” are anywhere close to correct, it will be extremely challenging for the Southwest U.S. to support a growing population in the coming decades.
Megadroughts in the Western U.S. can develop from natural causes, as well, and the current pattern of cooler than average ocean temperatures in the Eastern Pacific and warmer than average ocean temperatures in the Atlantic increase the odds of drought conditions like the ones we have seen during the current megadrought. Edward Cook, director of the Tree Ring Laboratory at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., said at a presentation last month at the American Geophysical Union meeting that tree ring data show that the area of the West that was affected by severe drought in the Medieval period was much higher and much longer than the current drought. It is “indeed pretty scary,” Cook said. “One lasted 29 years. One lasted 28 years. They span the entire continental United States.” Two megadroughts in the Sierra Nevada of California lasted between 100 and 200 years. Bobby Magill at Climate Center has more on Dr. Cook’s presentation in a post, Is the West’s Dry Spell Really a Megadrought?
Figure 3. Normalized precipitation over Western North America (five-year mean) from 22 climate models used to formulate the 2013 IPCC report, as summarized by Schwalm et al., 2012, Reduction in carbon uptake during turn of the century drought in western North America. The horizontal line marks the precipitation level of the 2000 – 2004 drought, the worst of the past 800 years. Droughts of this intensity are predicted to be the new normal by 2030, and will be considered an outlier of extreme wetness by 2100. The paper states: “This impending drydown of western North America is consistent with present trends in snowpack decline as well as expected in-creases in aridity and extreme climate events,including drought, and is driven by anthropogenically forced increases in temperature with coincident increases in evapotranspiration and decreases in soil moisture. Although regional precipitation patterns are difficult to forecast, climate models tend to underestimate the extent and severity of drought relative to available observations. As such, actual reductions in precipitation may be greater than shown. Forecasted precipitation patterns are consistent with a probable twenty-first century megadrought.” Image credit: Schwalm et al., 2012, Reduction in carbon uptake during turn of the century drought in western North America, Nature Geoscience 5, 551-555, Published online 29 JULY 2012, DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1529, www.nature.com/naturegeoscience.
If There’s Global Warming…Why Is It So Cold?
It’s been top-ten coldest January on record in the Upper Midwest, and much colder than average over much of the Eastern U.S. However, the that isn’t the case over other portions of the globe, including the Western U.S. and Alaska. Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt analyzes the situation in his latest post, How Cold has this January been in the U.S.? He concludes, “this January’s average temperature nationally has probably been close to normal since the western half of the nation has been almost as much above average as the eastern half was below average. The only region that will most likely have experienced a TOP 10 coldest January will be the Upper Midwest.” In the U.S., only four stations set all-time low minimum temperature records in January, compared to 34 that set all-time high maximum temperature records. I’ve been monitoring global temperatures this month, and it appears likely that January will rank between the 5th and 15th warmest January since record keeping began in 1880. Of particular note were the amazingly warm January temperatures in the Balkans. According to weather record researcher Maximiliano Herrera, “over 90% of all stations in the Balkans from Slovenia to Croatia to Bosnia to Serbia To Montenegro to Kosovo etc., have DESTROYED their previous record of warmest January ever (many locations have 100 – 200 years of data.) In many cases the monthly temperatures were 7 – 9°C (13 – 16°F) above average, and the new records were 3 – 4°C above the previous record. This is for THOUSANDS of stations, almost all of them. In Slovenia, for example, Mount Kredarica is the only station in the whole country not to have set its warmest January on record.”
Video 1. If There’s Global Warming … Why Is It So Cold? The latest video from climate videographer Peter Sinclair on the Yale Climate Forum website demonstrates that while it was a very cold January in the Midwest, this has been counterbalanced by record warmth over the Western U.S. and Alaska, caused by an unusually extreme kink in the jet stream.
Links Another Unexpected Disaster That Was Well Forecast. Based in Atlanta, TWC’s Bryan Norcross concludes that “WARM GROUND + VERY COLD AIR + SNOW + WORKDAY = CHAOS. If the decision-makers understood the formula above, this information should have been sufficient to trigger a proper response.”
For a normal human being who understands the value of having clean air and water to consume, clean soil to grow food in, and of living in a habitat that can support life, it is frustrating to watch one environmental calamity occur, after another without ever seeing a mainstream, non-politicized conversation about the condition of our natural world. It seems that merely expressing concern over the direction the environment is going is enough to solicit a number of stigmatized labels, such as hippie, liberal, terrorist, downer, debbie-downer, slacker, tree-hugger, climate changer, Al Gore, global warmer, Agenda 21′er, and so on. There is an extreme cultural bias against environmentalism, from many angles. Environmentalism is not a public priority.
What is at the root of this indifference toward the quality of our natural world? We certainly are a society that is highly preoccupied with security, but, for some reason, when it comes to securing a healthy environment, most of us look the other way, or put these concerns well below others.
THE CONVERSATION
The public conversation on any popular issue in America today is led by a handful of media companies who provide ‘news’ and ‘debate’ on the selected topics of each day. In this way, a narrow and focused message is syndicated across America, and we hear the same news and information repeated, often verbatim, by local, state, and national media. The model of a consolidated media, working for profit, bringing us an endless narrative, is very effective at setting societal priorities, at supporting hidden agendas, and at coloring the truth on any issue.
Lying by omission is one of the most effective ways of hiding the truth. By simply not mentioning an issue, then, effectively, a lie is told that the issue is irrelevant. The total picture of the truth is manipulated in this way by our mainline media, making it unlikely for consumers of media to connect the dots amongst environmental issues, linking their long term fall out to developments in policy and disaster clean up.
By effectively omitting critical issues from the ongoing public conversation, this most important subject is rendered unimportant, or the illusion is created that the environment is under responsible stewardship by the proper authorities. The media plays a significant role in shaping how this nation reacts to environmental catastrophes, and time and again the tactic of lying by omission is used against us to obfuscate the truth about what is happening to our natural world.
WHO STANDS TO GAIN?
Over the course of the last century our society has been heavily influenced to value a consumer oriented way of life over traditional ways of living. Our economy is driven by consumption, and the mainline media reinforces our dependence on and desire for this lifestyle by continuously reiterating the enjoyment and value to be had in acquiring more things. If the public were to lose interest in this lifestyle, this economy would collapse entirely.
As the primary sales agent of our consumeristic cultural paradigm, the media absolutely must refrain from demonstrating how our consumer based lifestyle lays waste to the earth, jeopardizing health and wellness for all. Our mainline media must do their best to camouflage this crisis in order to keep itself alive, in order to keep it’s coiffeurs filled, and in order to keep all those involved employed. A catch-22 of Biblical proportions.
For this, the prevailing manner of reporting on the environment issues has become to ignore all stories about the environment except the ones too big not to mention, then to brush those off the radar with haste. Once an environmental story is gone from the front page it is rarely ever mentioned again, even though the effects of environmental catastrophes are felt much later than the actual event.
WHAT DOTS?
The point of omitting environmental issues from the discussion is to inhibit people from connecting the dots on how the pattern of serious environmental destruction is directly related to the way of life being touted by the media. If people connect the dots, they may see how participation in the economy and this way of life is participation in ecocide, and thus, suicide. Upon realizing this, they may go further to make the connection that life is more important than the quest for wealth and materialism, and change their personal behavior to support the things which support life, rather than supporting the things which extract, pollute, and rape this wonderful earth.
If too many people change their behavior, then this economic system will collapse.
At present there are a number of extremely critical environmental issues that are going largely unaddressed by our policy makers and so-called leaders. As a service to the conversation about the quality of our world and the quality of our health, here is a list of the top 20 environmental issues routinely omitted by the mainstream media.
Perhaps seeing all this in one place will help support the overall picture of where our lives are going if we continue to sideline and ridicule any meaningful public discussion about how our lifestyles support the destruction of the natural world. Without pigeon holing concerned people into labels like, commie, collectivist, dirt worshipper, liberal, eco-terrorist, or whatever. against our long term interests of having a planet that can sustain and and is worth living on.
CONCLUSION
Connecting the dots on these issues raises the question of how these issues are inter-connected. The continuous thread that runs through each of these calamities is an industrial hubris that seeks, first and foremost, ever-increasing profit. This is supported by governments, both corrupt and manipulated by economic hitmen. Behind this lies the arrogant human assumption that human beings are somehow separate from the earth and it’s creatures, and somehow in control of the natural forces of the world.
Whether you want to call it global warming, climate change, industrial accidents, unfortunate events, mismanagement, or what have you, the fact remains that our natural world is becoming increasingly toxic and the future for our children looks rather dim without a mass awakening and acceptance of this issue as a top social priority. As the natural world continues to degrade, it will eventually become impossible for the media and industry to hide the extent of the damage that is being done, no matter what illusions we are spoonfed.
Simple, common-sense environmentalism shouldn’t be reserved for political hacks like Al Gore or globalist supporters of Agenda 21. You shouldn’t have to be a carbon credit trader to be concerned about the radiation leak at Fukushima, and you don’t have to be a Rothschild to understand that oil in the backyard isn’t good for the family dog.
As individuals it is up to each of us to re-think our dependance on consumer culture and reinvent how we relate to the natural world. For inspiration on this, please view this thought-provoking talk by Sebastião Salgado.
Portuguese news reported the discovery of a very large under water pyramid first discovered by Diocleciano Silva between the islands of São Miguel and Terceira in the Azores of Portugal.
According to claims, the structure is said to be perfectly squared and oriented by the cardinal points.
Current estimates obtained using GPS digital technology put the height at 60 meters with a base of 8000 square meters.
The Portuguese Hydrographic Institute of the Navy currently has the job of analyzing the data to determine whether or not the structure is man-made.
“The pyramid is perfectly shaped and apparently oriented by the cardinal points,” Silva told Diário Insular, the local newspaper.
The pyramid was found in an area of the mid-Atlantic that has been underwater for about 20,000 years. Considering this is around the time of the last ice age where glaciation was melting from its peak 2000 years prior, whatever civilization, human or not, that was around before the ice age, could be responsible for building the pyramid.
While the Portuguese Navy still hasn’t determined the origins, many might question why this hasn’t been first reported on sooner than late 2012. Certainly the NOAA who studies volcanic activity in the area of the pyramid would have discovered the pyramid through sonar imaging and so forth since the area is heavily studied due to volcanic activity.
Either the NOAA hasn’t yet come across it, they are hiding what they have found, or the pyramid doesn’t exist. The last theory does not seem to be likely given the authenticity of the find.
Right: The actual pyramid, as scanned with high-tech device
To further support the idea that this pyramid could have been built by different civilizations, archaeologists from the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research have recently discovered evidence on Pico island that suggests their belief that humans existed in the Azores region before the arrival of the Portuguese thousands of years ago. As of today, there is still no explanation for who created the rock art found on the islands.
Was the pyramid built by whatever civilization existed prior to the Portuguese? Is it possibly not even man-made?
Is this the sunken continent of Atlantis?
Here is the Portuguese news report with English subtitles for those who wish to look into the authenticity of the claims:
The Azores are an interesting region as they are a chain of nine volcanic islands in three main groups that are roughly 930 miles west of Lisbon. They are all situated around the fault lines between the North American, Eurasian and African tectonic plates. An interesting place to have a pyramid given the energetic qualities often associated with pyramids.
This video discusses some interesting bits of information that explore the authenticity of the story and the possible location visually using some maps.
It is important to note that exact coordinates of the pyramid have not been released. He believes that there may be a discovery of 2 more pyramids in the area as images suggest there could be a design link to that of the pyramids built in Egypt.
Last update: January 28, 2014 at 3:22 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Update 15:22 UTC Many houses suffered at least minor damage, like cracked walls and fallen tiles. Some houses are severely damaged, with collapsed walls, etc. So far no injuries are reported.
Magnitude 4.6 is reported by chinese authorities. The epicenter is located in southern Yunnan, close to the border to Laos.
First reports mention cracked buildings in towns near the epicenter. More damage reports are expected to follow. Quakes of this size in Yunnan generally damage many hundred buildings. Today’s quake is the fourth this year in Yunnan which causes damage.
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 4.6
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-01-28 20:02:00
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Very Strong (damaging) earthquake along the Java coast, Indonesia
Last update: January 25, 2014 at 3:51 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Update 15:30 UTC: Until now there are no reports of casualties. Meanwhile, small aftershocks were felt in the region.
A mosque collapsed in the village of Kranggan
Update: Based on preliminary data report of “Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana” – BNPB (“National Disaster Management Agency”), two mosques and 45 homes are damaged. Among the most affected cities we mention: Purworedjo, Banyumas, Kebumen, Cilacap, Magelang and Yogyakarta.
Update 07:38 UTC: A mosque in the village of Kranggan collapsed, damaging one neighbour building, No casualities there. Some more houses in Kranggan suffered some damage.
Update 07:26 UTC: Damage is now reported from various parts of south-central Java. One house in Purworedjo collapsed and others were damaged. Little damage, mainly cracked walls, is visible in parts of Yogyakarta. Rockfalls were observed in the hills around the town Kebumen, and in Tasikmalaya (western Java) the quake destroyed many windows. In many parts the people ran out of their houses in panic. Luckily there are no injuries so far.
Update : we do not expect serious damage out of this earthquake because of the distance and the depth of the hypocenter. The depth of the hypocenter is the reason that millions of Indonesians may have felt this earthquake.
39km (24mi) SSE of Adipala, Indonesia
41km (25mi) S of Kroya, Indonesia
53km (33mi) SW of Gombong, Indonesia
54km (34mi) S of Banyumas, Indonesia
330km (205mi) SE of Jakarta, Indonesia
8 Courageous Things Harry Potter Fans Did to Fight Real-Life Dark Forces
If Harry Potter were a real person, he’d fight child labor, voter suppression, and poverty. Here are our favorite ways Harry’s fans have taken his values from the page to the real world.
Andrew Slack finally read the Harry Potter series when he gave in to pressure from his students who were obsessed with Harry, the teenage wizard who uses magic, courage, and wit to confront dark forces and save the world.
Though the plot is fantastical, Slack, like millions before him, couldn’t stop talking about the books. But then he realized that if Harry Potter were a real person, he wouldn’t just stand around talking about himself. Harry Potter, Slack said, would “fight injustice in our world the way he fought injustice in his.”
Rowling created a world that made “fun of normalcy as an aspiration” and believed that “the weapon we have is love.”
That’s when Slack had the idea to mobilize Harry Potter fans around real-world problems—and it was easy for Slack to find parallels between the fictional stories and real-life issues.
In the Harry Potter series, author J.K. Rowling, who worked at Amnesty International prior to writing the books, wrote about inequality and even ethnic cleansing between pure-blood, half-blood, and muggle-born wizards, as well as non-magical people; werewolves forced to conceal their true identities from a culture that shames them; house elves that are enslaved and inherited down through generations; prisoners tortured in Azkaban, the wizard prison; and the use of consolidated media to control public opinion.
Most of all, says Slack, Rowling created a world that made “fun of normalcy as an aspiration” and believed that “the weapon we have is love.”
Just as Hermione Granger started the activist Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare (SPEW) to try to end the slavery of house elves and Harry started Dumbledore’s Army to fight Lord Voldemort, Slack started the Harry Potter Alliance—a movement of Harry Potter fans turning their deep love of the stories into real-world action in order to “fight injustice in our world.”
Today, the HPA has 190 chapters in 35 U.S. states and eight countries and participation in the group spans all ages.
Slack and the HPA believe in the power of story to change the world and they believe that activism can be fun and lighthearted, even when the societal issues they’re confronting are serious. Slack calls this method of making the world a better place through popular culture, “cultural acupuncture.”
“Imagine people working to end global warming, racism, and genocide as energetically as they flock to movies,” wrote Slack for the Huffington Post. “Imagine them walking out of Avatar with an organization that says, ‘Here’s how we can band together to protect Pandora by fighting the “Sky People” in the Coal Industry.'”
Here are eight issues the HPA has already taken on:
1. Labor rights
The Harry Potter Alliance took off when Slack and his friend Seth Soulstein, from their traveling comedy group, the Late Night Players, joined with the group Walmart Watch and created “Harry Potter and the Dark Lord Waldemart” YouTube videos.
The featured main character is a cloaked figure with a Walmart smiley face for a head, the evil Waldemart. The videos describe Walmart’s unjust labor practices and how their low prices force local shops out of business.
Just as Lord Voldemort treats his servants poorly (for example, SPOILER ALERT!, he chops off Wormtail’s hand and murders Professor Snape), Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, treats its workers unfairly.
2. Fascism and genocide
The group rose in popularity when Slack and Soulstein combined efforts with Harry and the Potters, a rock band based on the books. Their first move was to mobilize already existing Harry Potter fan groups around ending genocide in Darfur.
This theme shows up in the books when, controlled by Voldemort and his Deatheaters, the Ministry of Magic establishes a policy of ethnic cleansing, believing people with impure or non-wizard blood have no worth.
The group worked with Sifa Nsengimana, a Rwandan human rights activist. With her help, in addition to creating a podcast, raising awareness, and sending letters to end genocide, the group established a library in Rwanda for children who were orphaned because of the genocide.
3. Disaster relief
With the help of the Wizard Rock community, HPA raised more than $123,000 in two weeks for Partners In Health following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. With this money, PIH was able to fly five planes full of emergency medical supplies to Haiti. Four of the planes had Harry Potter names—Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore—while the fifth was named DFTBA (Don’t Forget to Be Awesome) in honor of Nerdfighters, a group that joined with the HPA on the campaign.
4. Education
The Harry Potter series largely takes place at Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry. In the books, education plays a central role and the lead heroine is Hermione Granger, a young witch who demonstrates the role of books and education in fighting injustice and empowering people.
The Alliance has donated more than 120,000 books to kids in Rwanda, the Mississippi Delta, and New York City through its “Accio Books” campaign. They also helped build libraries at the New Beginnings Charter School in Brooklyn and in community centers across the Mississippi Delta.
5. Modern-day slavery and child labor
Dobby the house elf, one of the series’ most beloved characters, is a slave who has been passed down through generations in the Malfoy family. When Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy, the family patriarch, into freeing Dobby, Harry earns the elf’s undying loyalty. Dobby, as a free elf, achieves self-realization.
And Harry Potter fans have made the connection between house elf slavery and modern-day slavery.
HPA is currently pressuring Warner Brothers, which sells Harry Potter chocolate frogs (a common sweet in the books), to prove there is no child slavery in their cocoa supply chain. The Alliance even sells their own version of chocolate frogs made from fair-trade chocolate.
6. Voter registration
The Harry Potter books demonstrate the importance of civic participation by highlighting the government’s role and its potential to overreach. More often than not, Harry Potter and his friends are at odds with the Ministry of Magic.
The HPA has used this connection in their “Wizard Rock the Vote” campaign. At 70 Wizard Rock shows across the nation, HPA volunteers walked around with clipboards registering more than 1,100 Harry Potter fans to vote.
7. Immigration and marriage equality
In the Harry Potter series, many “people have to live in the closet for simply being who they are,” explains Slack. “Lupin has to live in the closet for his identity as a werewolf, Hagrid has to live in the closet for his identity as a half-giant, and Harry Potter is forced to live in the closet for his identity as a wizard. We all live in closets for multiple reasons. No one should have to, including for their immigration status or for their sexual or gender orientation.” That’s why the HPA raised more than $94,800 for equality initiatives.
In the 2012 election, club members helped in phone banks to add 900 calls to the Maryland DREAM Act to grant an in-state tuition discount to undocumented college students and to add support of marriage equality in Maine. In 2011 they made 6,200 phone calls and processed 214 digital postcards in support of marriage equality in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The HPA also currently has a “Superman Is an Immigrant” campaign to support immigrant rights.
8. Structural poverty
The HPA is branching out into other books too. The “Hunger is Not a Game” campaign joined with Oxfam and the Hunger Games fandom to help end hunger. Their newest campaign is “The Odds Are In Our Favor” to raise awareness about inequality.
Katrina Rabeler wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Katrina is a freelance reporter and writer.
Katrina Rabeler wrote this article for